


a fire and a flame

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Women, Character Study, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill comes to SHIELD from the Academy. Bobbi Morse comes to SHIELD from graduate school. Natasha Romanoff comes to SHIELD from somewhere in the middle of Russia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a fire and a flame

**Author's Note:**

> For [TowerParty](http://towerparty.livejournal.com/), a Marvel flashfic challenge. I was tagged by **tielan** with the prompt _what the fuck is ladylike if ladies like to do what the fuck they like_.

Maria Hill comes to SHIELD from the Academy. She’s got a thick ponytail and a brain full of knowledge, top marks in academics and the highest tactical evaluation that the Council has seen in recent history. She comes to SHIELD with a binder full of notes and is told that she needs to report.

Nick Fury is dead, and Maria Hill learns that tactical thinking is highly overrated.

 

***

 

Bobbi Morse comes to SHIELD from graduate school. She’s got horn-rimmed glasses and a suitcase full of clothes, two PhDs and more science knowledge than she knows what to do with. She comes to SHIELD and trades her glasses for contacts and gets fitted for a suit.

Clint Barton falls in love with her, and Bobbi Morse learns that carefully calculated plans never end up working.

 

***

 

Natasha Romanoff comes to SHIELD from somewhere in the middle of Russia. She’s got blood on her hands and bruises on her face, a resume of murder and too little trust. She comes to SHIELD in handcuffs, and is kept in a dark, locked room until someone reads her brain and decides that it’s okay to let her out.

She becomes best friends with the man who saved her, and Natasha Romanoff learns that she’s not the only one who carries red in her ledger.

 

***

 

Not everything at SHIELD is as simple as shooting a gun, Maria realizes. She’s driving through the streets of Cape Town, white knuckling the steering wheel next to the agent she’s supposed to be shadowing, an overly thin woman who wears a permanent scowl, and who has already taken a dislike to her, though Maria doesn’t really care. They’ve already made the kills, grabbed the information, and as far as Maria is concerned, there’s nothing left for her to do on this trip other than smile curtly and make sure she has the necessary facts that Fury will request in her report.

Besides, she doesn’t need people to like her. She just needs people to _respect_ her.

They stop at the safe house to shower and change and wash the blood and dirt out of their nails and hair, and peppered throughout the stony silence are questions that make Maria feel like she’s giving her Academy interview all over again. _Who do you love? Why did you take this job? Do you understand that you might not make it out of this alive? Do you have any relatives that might be upset about this career choice? It is a career choice, you know._ Her skin crawls with defiance and anger, and she suddenly feels like she's being unfairly targeted.

It’s easy to make up answers. It’s much harder to believe them.

 

***

 

“I had him on your six.”

“Doesn’t matter. He would’ve gotten us anyway. That tracker was with us well before you even realized that it could’ve been.”

“Yeah, but _I had him on your six_.”

“Well, look on the bright side, Mr. I Love Self Loathing. We get to spend a night together.” It’s not ideal, the steel walls of a cell parading as the atmosphere for their first anniversary, but Bobbi thinks it could be worse considering that before Fury had re-assigned them, they were supposed to be worlds apart tonight, on two very different missions.

And anyway, it wasn’t the worst situation they’d ever been in. Barton’s already managed to pick the lock of his handcuffs and is mostly sitting pretty until their captor comes back to interrogate them again, and he’s also taken one black eye for the team.

“Betcha you’re looking forward to patching me up later.”

“You flatter yourself,” Bobbi responds flatly. “I'm not washing your ass, by the way. Gimme my gun.” She leans over as much as she can to pick up the glock he’s kicked across the floor, manages to get it in both hands despite her own handcuffs, and watches as the door opens slowly.

 _Breathe. Tense. Repeat._ Get the shot in before they can make it through, but don’t try and kill.

She aims and fires, hits the masked man in the side and watches him fall as Barton breaks free from his spot on the floor, bow in hand.

“God, Morse, you’re a fucking beauty,” he shouts as he draws an arrow, shooting it into the eye of their attacker. Bobbi watches him fight, and grins.

Careful calculations. They never end up working out.

 

***

 

Four months, three days and twelve hours from the first day Natasha Romanoff steps foot in SHIELD, Clint Barton takes her on as a partner.

She tries to get out of it, at first, avoids his knocks and his phone calls, until he practically corners her coming out of the gym after a practice session. She has better things to do than wonder how he found out about her gym schedule when she’d specifically penciled herself in for every other hour _but_ this one (and somehow, she finds herself okay with that) so she doesn’t bother to run when he sticks his hand out, effectively cutting her off as she tries to bypass him.

“You hate me that much, you can’t even reject me?”

Natasha blinks once, slowly. “I didn’t say I hated you.”

“Newsflash, Natasha Romanoff,” and Clint’s all smiles now, which makes her insides twist into knots, “in this country, when a guy avoids a girl the way you are, you’re pretty much saying you hate them.”

“I don’t hate you,” Natasha responds hotly, feeling the fire in her stomach explode into a hot white ball. “I just...don’t want to be your partner.”

There. She’s said it. She’s said the words she’s been thinking since the memo came over her desk in the bullpen, since she had started keeping to herself, and she’s still standing. _He’s_ still standing.

He’s not leaving, and she’s honestly surprised.

“Not _now?_ Or not ever?” 

Natasha swallows. “Not now,” she finishes quietly, and Clint drops his arm, rolls his shoulders.

“Okay.”

There’s a shorthand there, something she’s not entirely familiar with, layers of unsaid things underneath a simple answer but she can’t think about that right now, because she needs to take care of herself. She needs to take care of herself, and take care of him, because she’s still unsure of where she fits in here. Because right now, Clint Barton is the only friend she has, and that’s more important than relegating herself to one half of a whole. 

He lets her leave without question, and the next day they resume training and briefings as if nothing has happened. They go to Madripor. They save a few civilians. They get stranded in London and are forced to fly commercial back to New York with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few cheap souvenirs from overseas.

A month later, she knocks on his door and formally accepts his partnership.

“I read your files,” she says when he doesn’t speak first, and as she watches his lips rise, she wonders what took her so long.

She’s not the only one who’s got debts and sins and transgressions weighing down on her in this new world.

 

***

 

They stand together, after it all, three points of a triangle merged together in a world desecrated by aliens and government conspiracies, and it should be easy to feel angry, but there’s so much at stake that it’s impossible to concentrate on anything else. Bobbi twists her hands and Natasha twirls her hair and Maria taps one foot against the floor of her office, crunching sunflower seeds between pristine white teeth, and they wait.

And they wait.

And so Fury explains, and they listen –- Maria will keep watch on SHIELD activity and Hydra traitors, and Bobbi will work undercover in enemy territory, and Natasha will meet up with Barton to help plan an extraction that requires more detail than can be given over a possibly unsecure line.

“I need you to do everything in your power to make sure we stay stable,” the Director says. It’s not a suggestion -- it’s an order. _I need you to keep the world safe._ Maria says, “great.” Bobbi says, “sign me up.”

“I guess there’s going to be a party,” Natasha deadpans before they all hang up the phone.

They don't say what they know -- that they've lived their lives fighting separate parts of this war, and now it's time to do it together.


End file.
